From the moment you wake up to the moment you go back to sleep, technology is everywhere. Technology is a very intriguing phenomenon that obtains an increasing dominance over our planet, but most specifically, the human brain. The technologically invested world that we live in today has become the new normal. According to The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), almost 50% of the world’s population uses the Internet, leading to over 3.5 billion daily searches on Google and more than 570 new websites being launched each minute. That's not all. This research also says that over 90% of the world’s data has been created in just the last couple of years.
Technological advancements are rapidly changing; as each day goes by, we seem to astound ourselves with the outcomes of our own actions and inventions, for example industrial robots, augmented Reality, algorithms, and machine-to-machine communications etc.The list of technological advancements grows every day.
We have woven a web for ourselves in which we are so strongly connected to technology, that saying that it will not be in our future is simply impossible. To a certain extent, this is a good thing, that the human race is developing. However, letting technology take control over our lives to such an extent where many cannot live without their phones is something that we need to be not only careful with, but also prevent this from damaging other aspects of our lives. We see how through the use of various algorithms and highly advanced tech, technology has successfully infiltrated our lives to the point where it is very hard to go back. We are living in an algorithmic world.
The two technological advancements that will definitely influence and partake in our future would be artificial intelligence and algorithms. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are technologies that use the prolific data we have to fuel the intelligence revolution. Machine intelligence, in many ways, exceeds human intelligence. Many aspects of our everyday life are now being impacted by artificial intelligence already. The reason for its importance is purely because both private and public sectors are striving to obtain speed consistency and guaranteed productivity, which eventually screams profit. It is said that robots will replace up to 20 million factory jobs' by 2030. But the drive to replace humans with machinery is accelerating as companies struggle to avoid workplace infections of COVID-19 and to keep operating costs low.
Technology has also influenced business, entrepreneurship and even politics.
Investments into such new technological fields will most definitely mainly be made by private sectors such as Microsoft, CEO of which is Satya Nadella, and Tesla, CEO of which is Elon Musk. SpaceX was founded by Musk, which is a private spaceflight company, this is a quintessential example of a private sector striving to carry out various technological advancements. Those business people will think about profit, and will be achieving this in the near future, through carrying out research in areas that have not been discovered yet.
Another aspect is the influence that technological advancements already have and will proceed to have is the system of politics and the state system. The science of politics will change. The Internet allows the government to be more efficient and reduce cost of operation, hence there is no doubt that they will continue to make full use of it. We will see changes such as the following: our generation and all the ones before had grown up with such a system that candidates for certain important positions such as President or Prime Minister had to go through various electoral systems and procedures in order for the electoral college to see and assemble valid candidates for the job. However in all the coming years, we will see a major change in how this works. Candidates will be chosen through the Internet via the algorithm as network analysers and researchers will see what the public wants through the close connection which they obtain with us. Keeping in mind that they have access to all recent searches, messages, and details of each individual, hence enabling them to obtain the information regarding their preferences. We already see this happening, and we have the perfect example of Brexit.
Based on the knowledge I personally obtain on technology, and where we have gotten so far, it is clearly visible to me how this is only the beginning for the future of technology and that its potential is limitless. We can never forget to ask this key question to prevent irreversible mistakes from happening: Can technology harm our future? And will we ever reach the turning point of when this harm exceeds the benefits?
Scary